Stringing Me Along
by SpideychelleCarwheelerTrash
Summary: After Peter disappears on a mission without contacting MJ, he must get particularly creative in order to make up.


Here is the link to the prompt post this is from! Be sure to tell me if you're from AO3 or , just so I can remember to post here. ;) Feel free to go anon, but I don't bite!

Peter Parker left for three weeks without so much as a text.

Yeah, Ned had come up with an excuse, something about "vacationing in Costa Rica," but that was bullcrap and MJ knew it. Leeds had avoided MJ for as long as physically possible, but it wasn't too hard to corner him in AP Chemistry, where she threatened him with death in exactly six different ways. Of course Ned and MJ were friends; in fact, sometimes it was easier to talk to him for MJ than anyone else, though she would never admit it. But he also was the only other person who knew the secret about her other best friend, and he was more in the loop than MJ was. Essentially, she would threaten him with death if she had to, and he knew it.

The first few threats didn't do anything, but as MJ got more and more creative, she came closer and closer to breaking Ned Leeds. After promising to rip out his esophagus and wear it as a leg warmer, he finally spilled that Peter had been called away to France for some Avenger work. He had access to a phone, Ned said, and he was supposedly okay.

Those three weeks were some of the worst that MJ had ever experienced.

No, MJ was not dependent on Peter Parker. But she worried, the same way she would about any of her friends (and no, it did not matter that Peter Parker was fifty percent of her friend group). She almost got caught several times in Chemistry checking for updates on any unusual activity in France. When the news started covering the actual fighting, MJ had six different news apps set to vibrate on her phone. She didn't even care when it went off in class. Her preparation for decathlon suffered, and she was distracted because she could not resist the urge to open her texts to make sure that Peter hadn't messaged her. She was struggling to fall asleep, because every time she closed her eyes, all she could think about was waking up to news footage of Spider-Man being slaughtered. Ned had noticed her state and seemed extremely worried, and he had even started to bring her chocolate chip waffles to school in the morning because he knew they were her favorite. MJ could never force herself to choke down more than half of a waffle, but the fact that Ned made sure they were there and texted to check in with her made MJ feel slightly better.

And then, without warning, Peter was back. He was everywhere: her first hour class, the cafeteria, decathlon practice.

MJ couldn't even look at him.

The first day of his return, she sat at the back table in first hour Pre-Calc-the place where she used to sit before she grew closer to Parker and Leeds. For lunch, MJ sought the refuge of the library, armed only with the single bag of goldfish she had brought with her. Normally, she would mooch off of Leeds, but that wasn't an option. During decathlon, MJ purposely paired off the various team members to quiz one another, keeping herself as far away from Peter Parker as possible. That meant putting up with Flash Thompson for an entire practice. It wasn't so bad, as long as she ignored his stupid remarks about her performance and remembered that prisons generally didn't have the best libraries. The only hard part was ignoring the tingling of Peter's eyes on her back.

When the bell rang, signifying the end of the school day, MJ let out a sharp breath and practically leaped up from her seat in the back of the Anatomy classroom. The hallways swelled with people as she stepped into them. It didn't bother MJ much, however. She had learned a long time ago how to maneuver her way through the halls by sliding through the tiniest gaps. Occasionally, she would use her height to her advantage. She liked being tall, because it meant that if she straightened up her shoulders and walked with murder in her eyes, the freshmen scattered.

In record time, MJ was out of Midtown's front doors and on the sidewalks, alone. She had walked home alone for her whole life up until a few months ago, so she should've had no qualms about doing the same now.

It shouldn't feel this weird, MJ told herself. But the air was a little bit too quiet without Peter and Ned. Normally, MJ would pretend to read as she walked calmly with them, letting their nerd jabbering wash over her to make her feel safe. Even if she did not often contribute more than a few sarcastic quips, the two losers made her feel like she was a part of something. She hated that she missed them.

Or, at least, she missed them until she could hear the whizzing of something hurtling at her.

"'Why, yes, I'm alright, thank you very much for asking,'" quipped a familiar voice as MJ closed her eyes to anticipate the collision with one of her best friends. "Oh, wait… That didn't happen, did it? My bad." Before she could process what was happening, a pair of arms wrapped around her torso and held her close as they launched away from the ground.

A cry of alarm escaped MJ's lips as a red blur wrapped its arms around her waist, swinging from building to building over busy streets and bustling sidewalks. When she figured out what was happening, a string of expletives left her lips. MJ gripped the torso of the red and blue clad vigilante. She found herself gazing downward as Spider-Man flew between the skyscrapers with his webs, and the distance between them and the ground was enough to make her head spin.

MJ could feel her heart hammer as panic filled her, and she tightened her grip so that she was nearly squeezing the life out of Peter and his stupid, high-tech Halloween costume. At this point she was so dizzy that she couldn't tell which way was up, and through it all MJ fought to keep ahold of the messenger bag that dangled precariously from her shoulder. For a moment, MJ felt a wave of nausea roll over her, and then she was pressing her face to Peter's chest, willing it to all be over. Even through the panic, MJ could feel his rock-hard muscles beneath her cheek. She breathed in the clean smell of laundry soap for a moment, letting it wash over her to clear her head of the foggy panic.

So maybe she had hoped one day to be held by Peter Parker, but this wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind.

After what could have been thirty minutes of falling, there was a thud and the crunch of gravel beneath her feet. Immediately, MJ released her hold on Peter and tumbled to her knees, ignoring the way the gravel pierced painfully through the cloth of her jeans. For a moment, MJ crouched on hand and knee, struggling to inhale. It felt like her throat was closing up.

"MJ?" came the concerned voice of the nerd she hated so much, or at least that was what she told herself. It was not lively or teasing the way it had been before- this time, it was honestly worried. "Um, so I knew you wouldn't exactly like the idea, but…"

She ignored the words from over her shoulder, fighting to keep the nausea at bay. Her head was spinning, and she felt unstable even though she could feel the ground beneath her. MJ clung to that stability with everything she had. "Are you okay?"

MJ felt humiliation wash over her while she crouched on the ground. She hated this, hated that she felt weak and vulnerable. She loathed the fact that she couldn't stand up and punch him in the face the way that she wanted to.

"I… h-hate you," she wheezed, managing to force her eyes open just slightly. The sun stung through the little slits that her eyelids created, and she could see the loose sort of gravel one might find on the roof of a low-budget building. She could also make out the brightly colored feet of Peter Parker's fire-engine red morph suit.

"Why? I'm lovely," came the loser's playful voice from above her. It was not so jovial as it had been when he first teased her; Peter was testing the waters, seeing how she would react to humor in the situation. MJ gritted her teeth and finally allowed her eyes to shut, granting them a moment of cool relief. She was just starting to feel a bit more comfortable as she clung to the ground, but the wind whipped her hair as a reminder of exactly how high up she was.

When she did not respond, she heard the masked hero's feet scuffling around in the gravel. "Look, I only wanted to talk! You made it pretty clear you weren't going to give me a chance, so I… Okay, so now that I'm saying it, I'm realizing it wasn't a good plan." He paused, taking a breath and crossing his arms sheepishly. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were-"

"I was what? " MJ snapped with a bite in her voice, and though she was not looking at his face, MJ could see his wince in her mind's eye.

"-Um, afraid of heights," Peter finished carefully.

MJ let out a shuddering gasp, and suddenly her arms felt like jello. Little tingles of panic raced up and down every inch of her body, and a little groan escaped her lips. Immediately, she heard movement of the gravel again, and then Peter was kneeling beside her.

"Hey."

The earnest tone that he used held so much concern for her that it was making MJ feel… things . That only made her want to hit him harder.

"MJ, I'm really sorry," he murmured, and she managed to open her eyes just a bit, enough to look up and see that he had removed the mask.

It was easier to focus on his curly, dark locks than the skyline behind him, so she forced herself to look at his hair instead. It was a mess from being kept under the mask, which gave MJ the urge to reach over and straighten it by running her fingers through the strands. They looked soft.

MJ forced herself not to think about that. It was only the adrenaline talking.

Peter, luckily, did not seem to realize that her silence was for any other reason than her intense phobia. "I can bring you back down-"

"No!" The guttural cry was hoarse as it left MJ's tightened throat, and then suddenly her head was swimming again. Even though she was kneeling down, she felt like she was going to fall. "N-no. I can't not again. I don't want to fall again."

Peter did not say anything for a moment, only attempted to rest a hand on her shoulder. MJ jerked away from him so his hand fell down again. Though the movement caused another wave of nausea to hit her, she did not show it. "Don't touch me," she instructed, feeling hollow. Her head was throbbing, and MJ was sure that if she had been up this high by herself, she would have passed out. She would not allow herself to do that in front of Peter Parker.

"I-I don't think the door to the roof is unlocked," Peter stammered with panic in his voice. "Um…" For a moment, MJ almost thought that she could hear the melodic, simulated voice of an AI, but it was too quiet for her to make out the words that it was saying. "O-oh! Okay. Um… Michelle?"

"Call me that _one_ more time, Parker." Perhaps MJ was a little bit more snappy than usual, but she was fairly sure she could blame it on the fifteen story building upon which she was currently marooned.

"Right. MJ?"

"For the love of all things sacred, Parker, what do you want?"

Peter took a breath, and then suddenly his hands were on either side of her face. MJ stiffened, and the only reason she did not bat his hands away was because her frazzled brain did not know which to start with. "Look at me," he instructed, carefully tipping her head upwards so that it was not facing the ground. The small movement made MJ feel like she was going to topple off the edge even more, even though she knew she was in the center of the rooftop. She had little choice but to slowly tilt her head upwards so that it was facing his. "Come on… You're doing great. Just open your eyes?" he implored.

His voice was so gentle that it made her heart skip a beat, and that only added to MJ's mounting frustration. She took a sharp breath, and then slowly she worked on peeling her eyes open again. The light was still harsh against her eyes, but as the sun lowered, it was becoming less intense. She focused on what was directly ahead of her- Peter's eyes. Currently they were fixated on her with so much concern. Oh, no. She could feel her insides becoming mush, the same way that they did whenever he looked her way or tossed her a smile. Normally, she could handle it, but right now the adrenaline was lowering her ability to maintain control.

"There," he whispered softly. "Isn't that better?"

For a moment, MJ's thought process was drowned out by the pounding of her blood in her ears. Peter Parker had her face cupped in his hands, and a soft finger brushed over her cheekbone. MJ's heart was fluttering like a rabid parakeet, and this time it had nothing to do with the height. It had everything to do with the stupid boy in front of her, the one who was staring at her face-to-face. This would be the only time he could do that, her dazed brain murmured, since he was so damn short. Which, of course, made it harder not to notice every little flicker of his eyes when he stared up at her…

_Say something! _screamed the single functioning brain cell that MJ had left.

"I-I think so," she murmured, and MJ blinked several times to brush off the cobwebs of his spell over her.

Careful to focus on his face, she shifted to rise from her position on hands and knees to rock back into a seated position. As soon as she started to do so, however, her head was swimming and she felt the ground swim underneath her. A breathy cry escaped her lips as she stiffened, and then Peter's hand gently tapped her cheek to bring her eyes back to him.

"Hey," he murmured as he helped to ease her into the sitting position. As soon as Michelle was sitting on her legs, she let out a soft breath. This wasn't so bad, maybe. The wind was still a force to be reckoned with, but if she didn't think about it, the way that it played with her curls was a bit comforting. "You did it." Peter's voice spoke to a quiet triumph on her behalf, which only sent her cardiac parakeet into further upset.

"Yeah," MJ whispered, trying not to think about it. He was still cupping her face in his hands, which meant that he was now leaning over to her. That, in turn, meant that there was little space between them, and MJ could have mistaken the chiseled chest of the boy before her for a statue. Yes, she had seen the suit in pictures before and such, and a few times from afar as she helped Ned and Peter run a mission. But seeing it up close was different. It didn't leave much to the imagination, for one thing… It took more self-restraint than it should have to keep from tracing a finger down his chest.

This was what made it so hard to be mad at him.

Until that moment, MJ had been too preoccupied with her phobia to remember why she was upset. Now that it was getting better, it became easier for MJ to return to the cold state of anger she had occupied before. "You asshole," she muttered, pulling away from him. As soon as she did so, she found herself missing the warmth of his hands on her cheek. "Don't you ever- ever swing me around that way again."

"I think 'string me along' works better, for the pun," Peter joked playfully. When he saw the thunderous look in her eyes, however, his dorky smile began to fade. "G-get it? Because webs are kind of like strings? And I- we flew around on them, so we were basically being moved along… By strings?"

"I got it, but it's so much funnier now that you've explained it," MJ deadpanned.

Part of her knew she was being a massive jerk. The other part, however, had gone weeks without getting more than an hour of sleep a night. That part had been unable to eat, consumed with worry. It had watched its workload multiply because it was frantically poring over newscasts instead of doing homework. That part had been terrified of losing Peter Parker.

Peter opened his mouth and closed it several times, and there was hurt mingled with worry in his eyes. "I…" he murmured, running a hand through his hair. "I wanted to talk. About today."

"What about it?" MJ questioned resolutely, lifting her chin. It caused blood to roar in her ears, but she focused on appearing supremely unbothered.

He blinked, and then he slowly continued. "Look, I know I was gone, MJ, and I'm sorry it upset you. I really am."

MJ let out a quiet chuckle, but there was no mirth in it. "Upset?" she echoed. "You think I was upset when you were gone." She paused for a moment, and she could tell that Peter knew better than to try to speak. "I wasn't just upset, Peter. You didn't text, you didn't call- not me, anyway. You called Ned-"

"From Karen, yeah," fumbled Peter. "He's my best friend, MJ, and Karen has him on speed-dial-"

"Then put me on speed-dial!" she burst. "Because I can't do that again, Parker! I can't go any more nights without sleeping, I can't keep skipping meals because I can't keep them down! I can't be stuck by my phone, looking through six different apps for news that-" Her voice cracked, and then MJ's eyes were stinging. All of the exhaustion and the worrying and the scrolling through their texts for some hint, any hint- every little bit of this came crashing down on her shoulders.

MJ purposely avoided looking at Peter as she turned away, willing the stinging in her eyes to stop. She knew that if she looked at Peter, he would be looking back at her with wide eyes. "MJ," he finally said in a quiet voice. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

She was silent for a moment, glaring at the scrape on her elbow. "Yeah, well," she muttered. "I guess there are a lot of things you didn't know, Parker."

He was quiet for a moment, and then he spoke again. "I guess… I guess I just never thought that you might need me too."

MJ's head snapped straight up to look at him. "What?"

He blinked several times, clearly questioning whether or not it was a good idea to have spoken at all. "Um." MJ raised an eyebrow and intensified her stare. She was too immersed now to worry about heights, or maybe she just couldn't care any longer. "You… You don't ever need anyone, you know?" He ran a hand through his hair, shifting from foot to foot. "You're strong on your own, you know? And when we're gone, you just… You seem fine. Nothing ever rattles you. Ned isn't like that. I'm all he's got. But you could have whoever you want. So I guess I just thought that when I was gone, you would be thinking about other things, just being… Cool. Because nothing ever bothers you."

Peter was rambling now, and for once, it was okay with MJ. She could not tease him about it the way that she would have, because her mind was whizzing at the speed of a thousand tiny drones. She could not poke fun, because she was barely keeping herself from dissolving into a pile of steaming mush.

Did he think of her like that? Unruffled, independent, strong? Peter Parker had assumed all of that about the girl who was kneeling in the gravel with a skinned elbow, the one whose kinky hair was falling out of its ponytail?

For a few seconds, MJ just blinked at him. Peter bit his lip, something MJ prayed on every star in the sky he would never do again because it made her crazy to see him move his stupid frog mouth like that. He let out a sharp breath and began to stammer, "I-I'll just, um, go down and unlock the roof door from the inside."

He began to turn, but MJ mumbled, "Wait." He froze immediately as if he had been hoping she would say that.

"I think that I'm okay to let you swing me down," she admitted, though the thought did cause her stomach to roil. "But first, I want to watch the sunset."

MJ took a breath and moved to reposition herself towards the skyline, where the sun was dipping towards the horizon over the water. After a moment, there was the crunching of gravel as Peter moved to sit next to her. He was close… Though MJ's eyes were focused on the sky ahead, her senses were tingling. She could hear every little puff of his breath, and in the night air, she could feel the warmth radiating off of him, melting her. Their hands were close, almost brushing. MJ wondered what it would feel like to just reach out and do it, to feel her hand against his. But even if they were inches apart, there was too much space. MJ knew that, no matter what she told herself, she would try to close it anyway.

"I'm sorry, too," she muttered as the sun turned to a deep orange, beautiful. "I shouldn't have ignored you, not like that. I just… I haven't had friends to fight with before, so I didn't really know what to do with that."

He glanced over at her, tossing a little grin. "I would rather you just punched me in the face," he informed her.

"No, you wouldn't. Enhanced cell regeneration or not, I'll break your nose clean off your face."

He chuckled, a sound that made MJ's heart soar. There was another moment of silence, and then he quietly said, "Next time, I text you at least once a day. And I'll always let you know where I'm going if the mission is dangerous."

She offered him a little, slightly lopsided smile. "Damn straight."

The sun had slowly been turning from orange to scarlet, and as she said that, it began to dip over the horizon. Nothing else happened- she did not rest her head on his shoulder, he did not wrap an arm around her. And MJ was alright with that because right now, she was exactly where she wanted to be, and she felt safe. Perhaps it was silly, to feel safe at dusk on the exposed top of a skyscraper in Queens.

But she was safe because Peter Parker understood, and they were friends again. Maybe it would be something more, but until then, MJ was happy to bask in the golden rays of their own little sunset.


End file.
